Dads: This is what happens when you emotionally abandon your wife

[Chalkandchina]

Consequences

Dear ExHusband,

I could see, this morning, when you came over to deliver H's Nintendo Switch which she left at your parents' house, where you're staying, how sad you were and I sensed you longing for the children as you hugged them at the door.

I felt a pang in my heart for you.
Then I had to remind myself that at no point have you complained about the contact time you have with the children. At no point have you asked for it to change. At no point have you tried to assert your needs as their parent. For this lack of assertiveness, there are consequences.

When you chose to leave me alone on my birthday with a newborn and a toddler to care for during the 12 hours that you went to enjoy your hobby after I begged you not to, I struggled to feel the same way afterwards.
There were consequences.

When on nights out with friends, you chose to belittle me instead of standing proudly by my side, a team, against the world together, for me there were consequences and eventually, for you there were consequences too.

When you didn't go to the doctor about your health issue, which grew and worsened and came between us, there were consequences.

When you stayed up late watching box sets instead of sleeping so that you could be the "on" parent during the day time when I'd been awake all night, there were consequences for us all.

When I couldn't make any more effort in our relationship anymore because whilst I was prioritising Us and the children, you were only thinking of yourself as an individual and there were consequences.

When you failed to stand up to your mother when she made underhanded remarks about my parenting, ignored me and treated me like I was invisible for 2 years and you told me I needed to be more tolerant? I distanced myself.
And there were consequences.

When the relationship therapist asked you to take the lead and make some effort to explore yourself, your wants, your needs, your hopes and dreams and make some effort in our relationship, you ignored her and there were consequences.

When the therapist told me to take some time out, for myself because I was exhausted trying to make a failing relationship work single handedly, I extended that time out for my own self preservation and so there were consequences.

When I tried to talk to you about how to resolve all of the hurt so that we could find a way, when I asked you to go to individual therapy and you didn't, there were consequences.

When you say NO to doing any inner work and NO to relationship work and NO to parenting and NO to sleep and NO to team work and NO to me.
I'm sorry, but there are consequences.

And now, I have to remind myself that I can't protect you from the consequences anymore. Even when I know that being away from us is making you sad, angry, resentful, hateful of me because you think it's all my fault, I remember that there are consequences. For all of us. But mostly, you have to face your consequences, like you faced your choices.

If thats the case then committing is utterly pointless.

Of course I don't think that @IllogicalLogic . Why would you even bring that up here? Do you think that?

Every time they don’t do something to help/save the relationship they dig further into the pit of resentment.
My DH did nothing about his snoring.
Nothing about the ED caused by antidepressants.
Nothing about his drinking, ever time he said he would.
Nothing about the lies he tells.
Nothing about the thousands of pounds of hobby stuff he bought, without my knowledge from our savings account, but promised to sell twice and put the money back.

So has he asked to come home op? Have his family apologised?

be careful in case they are on here

OK, for those who are turned off by the intervention of the therapist (perhaps this may have been tried to bring in a change to the power dynamic, and to try to save a relationship that was not in good shape).

If the paragraph had read the following:

When you say NO to doing any inner work and YES to relationship work and YES to parenting and YES to sleep and YES to team work and YES to me...

then perhaps that would have been...fine. But all angles were No.

I don't think many men realise that when they put you or the kids second to nights out with mates, sleeping in, not thanking you for meals cooked, criticising stuff, and basically using you as chief cook and bottle washer with sex as an added bonus - a little bit of your soul and attraction to them gradually disappears down the drain plug each time until you reach a point that you struggle to think what actually attracted you in the 1st place. I'm sure there are a few men with women like this too- but far less common.

This is so poignant and beautifully written. You have reaffirmed many things for me. The decision was right, for us all. Thank you x

How do I make it stop?!

@AlwaysTheGoodGirl

You leave.

@AcrossthePond55

YYY to that sense of lightness. For me, it felt I could breathe and stand up straight and walk around in my own home without fear of our paths crossing and him squaring up to me with a glowering face.

ExH admitted in mediation that he only wanted visitation because he was entitled to it, and he used the empty exercise as a game of keep away. Every other Friday, he would turn up and wait for them to go to his car. I packed clothes and toiletries and school backpacks with them for homework, any sports kit they needed, along with a bag of dvds, books, and whatever cuddly toy they wanted to bring. I had to wash and pack for up to four DCs every other Friday afternoon. He had toothbrushes for them at his place. There were no books, no clothes, nothing but a TV, which he watched all the time when he wasn't playing with his phone, going out for long runs, or walking his dog.

Entire weekends passed without him talking to the DCs about anything other than telling them to set the table for dinner, which he always undercooked but gave everyone dirty looks if they weren't eating or if they got up to stick their plate in the microwave.

Later, in family therapy (it came to that, court ordered), he complained to the therapist that the DCs never helped him get meals ready and just sat and ate in silence. He had a succession of kitchens you literally could stand in and touch the walls of, where you could open either a kitchen cabinet or a fridge door or an oven door or the dishwasher at once, but never any combination.

He once took them all apple picking, in ten years of visitation. Other than that, he did nothing with them apart from dragging them to Christmas open houses thrown by his new friends (who were friends of his new girlfriend), where he would dump them as soon as he arrived, and head off to be the life and soul of the party.

It angered him if he thought I had been texting back and forth with them or if we chatted on the phone on 'his' weekends. It was pointed out in family therapy that he had the express right to phone contact with the DCs during the twelve days between visits and never got in touch. His point was that the DCs should have contacted him. It's narcissism in action there, the expectation that children will make the running in a relationship, and the victim complex.

On occasions like birthdays that fell on a non visitation day, we always had a dinner at home, followed by cake, candles, etc. ExH was always invited and expected to join us for the cake part, which he did, punctiliously, at the exact time we were to light the candles and sing happy birthday. He would show up, sit apart from everybody, refuse a slice of cake, and generally behave like a wet blanket. After I would start clearing up, he would say goodbye and leave.

Because he brought three motions for contempt of court against me over the nine years, all alleging massive breaches of the visitation agreement, we often found ourselves standing before the judge in post divorce court. On one occasion, I had been accused of alienating him from the DCs by lighting the birthday cake candles two minutes before he got to our home. I said to the judge that this wasn't actually an issue since he (1) never sang happy birthday, and (2) always refused cake, just sat away from everyone like a lump, so clearly the DCs' birthday celebrations meant nothing to him. The judge gave him a lecture on the consequences of our choices in relationships with our children.

It went in one ear and out the other. He spent many more years ignoring them, but he did accept a slice of cake at birthdays, so there's that...The expectation that they would strike up conversations with a man who had been nothing but harsh to them as little children, and emotionally and physically abusive as the years went on, continued unabated. Not a single one of them ever talked to him once their 18th birthdays passed unless they absolutely had to. One simply turned and walked away from him at the wedding of a cousin when he came over to talk to her. One avoids all family events if there's a chance he'll be there.

And an incomplete list of other stunts he pulled wrt the DCs:

• Contacted DS' friends parents to tell them DS couldn't spend time with his friends, and absolutely no sleepovers on exH's weekends.
• Insisting DS went to one of the Christmas open houses when DS finally challenged him and refused to go. They had a huge screaming match over it, and exH said he would leave DS home, but if he came home and found DS gone, he would call the police and have him arrested. I called police to have a wellbeing check done on DS, who was distraught. ExH had locked him in and taken his winter jacket.
• Showing up at 8 am on Saturday mornings to pick up one of the DDs if she ever went on a sleepover at a good friend's house on a Friday night, waking the parents and forcing DD to leave before she and her friend had any kind of breakfast - they usually made waffles together. It got so embarrassing for DD that he would arrive so early ( he did this if she was babysitting or if she was at a birthday party, etc) that all her friendships eventually suffered as she felt so anxious about him picking her up hours before everyone else.
• Threatening to call the police on parents who were friends of both of us before divorce, whose children another DD used to babysit, because they were delayed getting home from an event they were at. He demanded their phone number from DD, who refused to give it, then demanded it from me, and I refused too. Then he threatened to park his car outside their house and wait til they got home, the better to abuse them. I said if he was going to be away from his home for more than an hour after 11pm, then per our agreement the rest of the DCs would have to be dropped home so I could take care of them. So nothing came of all the anger that night. Except of course the traumatizing of the DD. And he eventually did eventually lay his hands on the friends' number and left them a horrible message.

Needless to say, the visitation agreement specifically stated that the DCs social lives and any jobs or gigs they had were to go ahead as normal, with no curtailment on his weekends.